Official’s Pressure Of Promotion,Environmental Regulations And Enterprise Environmental Investment

Since the reform and opening up 40 years ago,China’s economy has developed rapidly,but the environment has also been deteriorating.According to the principle of "who pollutes,who governs,who develops,who protects",enterprises,as the main source of environmental pollution,should assume the responsibility of environmental control and increase investment in environmental protection.However,due to the externalities of environmental protection investment,long investment cycle and low economic benefits,enterprises rarely take the initiative to make environmental protection investment.Therefore,on the one hand,the government issued environmental regulation policies to restrain the environmental pollution of enterprises and strengthen their investment in environmental protection.On the other hand,the central government urges local governments to fulfill their environmental responsibilities by strengthening the top-level design of environmental policies and incorporating environmental performance indicators into the evaluation system of local government officials.When the promotion pressure of local officials changes from GDP growth to environmental performance,the change of the promotion pressure of local officials will inevitably have a positive impact on enterprises’ environmental investment.Based on the organization department of the central committee of the communist party of China in 2013,issued the local party and government leadership and leading cadres comprehensive evaluation method of circular shift the official promotion appraisal system as an opportunity,based on the sustainable development theory,market failure theory,corporate social responsibility theory,legitimacy theory and tournament theory,based on China’s institutional background,with A 2013-2018 Shanghai and Shenzhen two city of heavy pollution industry a-share listed companies as research samples,using theoretical analysis and empirical analysis method to study the official promotion pressure influence on enterprise environmental protection investment,then study the officials stress that affect the enterprise environmental protection investment promotion mechanism.This paper finds that: first,there is a significant positive correlation between the environmental performance-oriented promotion pressure of officials and the environmental protection investment of listed companies in heavy pollution industries,that is,the environmental performance-oriented promotion assessment system of officials is conducive to improving the environmental protection investment of listed companies in heavy pollution industries.Second,there is a significant positive correlation between the promotion pressure of officials guided by environmental performance and the regional environmental regulation,that is,the reform of the promotion assessment system of officials guided by environmental performance is conducive to strengthening andimproving the regional environmental regulation policy.Thirdly,the environmental performance-oriented promotion pressure of officials strengthens the enforcement of environmental regulations,thus increasing the environmental investment of heavily polluting enterprises.In other words,the promotion pressure of officials affects the environmental investment of enterprises by affecting environmental regulations,and environmental regulations play an intermediary role between the promotion pressure of officials and the environmental investment of enterprises.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward policy suggestions from three aspects: improving the promotion and assessment system of government officials,improving the environmental regulation system and building a reasonable corporate governance structure.Compared with the GDP-oriented promotion pressure of officials,the environmental performance-oriented promotion pressure analyzes the motivation of enterprises’ environmental investment,enriches and expands the research on the influencing factors of environmental investment,and provides policy reference for optimizing enterprises’ environmental investment behavior and improving the promotion evaluation mechanism of officials.